April 29, 2007

Is it something about France that makes people stupid?

I've basically assumed America will never, ever forgive the French in general, and Jacques Chirac in particular, for being right about Iraq. Fine. But the sheer volume of ignorant belief (North) Americans have about France is overwhelming sometimes, and this is unbearable with all the coverage of the French election. Up north you've got Canadian columnists writing that the UK's economy is "far stronger than France's" (it isn't) and that France is a second-rank military power (after the US, everyone's second rank.) In the US you've got the more common derision for the idea that the French would dare indulge in leisure time and have slightly less money. Horrors!

Mark Weisbrot has a good column explaining that, no, France's economic problems are no more severe than those faced by any other G8 country, including the US. At the very least, there's no convincing evidence that the usual proposed "solution" -- more liberalized market reforms -- is going to solve the problems France faces.

Comments

France Unemployment: 8%
US Unemployment: 4%
US unemployment during a recession: 6%

43.8 percent of unemployed workers in the EU remain jobless for more than 12 months, while only 11.8 percent of workers remain jobless in the United States.

Ezra claims "In the US you've got the more common derision for the idea that the French would dare indulge in leisure time and have slightly less money."

The problem isn't that they want to sacrifice income for leisure. The problem is government-enforced leisure and the lower growth rates that result. Those lower growth rates translate into fewer jobs being created, which means high unemployment for new workers, particularly immigrants. The only thing that keeps the country from spiraling out of control is a vast welfare state. I don't have to remind anyone of riots and social unrest that sprouted all over France in 2005. They have their immigrant populations quarantined off with no economic opportunity to improve their. That is the cost of giving a few native French "leisure time."

"Mark Weisbrot has a good column explaining that, no, France's economic problems are no more severe than those faced by any other G8 country, including the US."

I haven't had the chance to read it, but I can already tell someone cherry picked figures. The countries that embrace market reforms -- Sweden, UK, Ireland -- are doing much better than ones -- France, Italy, Germany -- that continue down the path of statism.

In conclusion, if I were a poor immigrant and I had a choice between the US and France, I'd head to the US in a heartbeat. Sure, France provides equality of outcome, but at the cost of economic opportunity. On the other hand, the US has higher inequality, but provides the opportunity to climb a ladder out of poverty. So who treats their poor better? The US.

"I haven't had the chance to read it, but I can already tell someone cherry picked figures. The countries that embrace market reforms -- Sweden, UK, Ireland -- are doing much better than ones -- France, Italy, Germany -- that continue down the path of statism."

"On the other hand, the US has higher inequality, but provides the opportunity to climb a ladder out of poverty. So who treats their poor better? The US."

I'd suggest you look at the recent work by people like James Galbraith or the Canadian Miles Corak on comparative inequality.

Short version: it is harder for the poor to move between income strata in the US than in France. Substantially more so in comparisons with the Nordic economies and Canada, but even France and Germany are actually better when it comes to the Horatio Algers of the world.

"I don't have to remind anyone of riots and social unrest that sprouted all over France in 2005. "

The riots that led to a death total of......one. (Not that we should be callous about that person - but, as the rioters said, their aim was not to kill people). The 1992 LA riots led to 53 people dead. The 2001 Cincinnati riots (and 1992 LA as well as 1989 Miami) were sparked by the same cause as 2005 France.

Uhm- given the right's views on immigrants- if you were a poor immigrant I think you would head to the country less hostile to you wherever that is. Just saying.

Posted by: akaison | Apr 29, 2007 11:41:54 PM

It's also worth observing that you can't compare unemployment statistics between countries. Each country defines unemployment in its own idiosyncratic way, and the US, in particular, makes several very questionable choices in its definition of who counts as unemployed.

I could give a few examples of ways in which unemployment statistics depend crucially on the exact details of what you're choosing to measure, but they're all pretty obvious. Anyone who thinks about it for a few minutes should have no trouble coming up with most of the important points.

"Where does one get the idea that people in France do not have the opportunity to climb out of poverty? There's nothing in your statements that provide any evidence of that."

To quote myself: "The problem is government-enforced leisure and the lower growth rates that result. Those lower growth rates translate into fewer jobs being created, which means high unemployment for new workers, particularly immigrants."

"I'd suggest you look at the recent work by people like James Galbraith or the Canadian Miles Corak on comparative inequality.

Short version: it is harder for the poor to move between income strata in the US than in France. Substantially more so in comparisons with the Nordic economies and Canada, but even France and Germany are actually better when it comes to the Horatio Algers of the world."

Duh. That's because there is significantly less income variability in European countries. It takes a lot more work to be in the top 1% of Americans than the top 1% of French. It would take a huge money making idea to topple Bill Gates. But if you look at the median, Americans are much richer than the French -- including our poor.

And let's not forget that 25% of poor Americans are first generation immigrants, and in a ten year study 86% of the bottom fifth moves to a higher bracket.

"It's also worth observing that you can't compare unemployment statistics between countries. Each country defines unemployment in its own idiosyncratic way, and the US, in particular, makes several very questionable choices in its definition of who counts as unemployed."

The 1992 LA riots led to 53 people dead. The 2001 Cincinnati riots (and 1992 LA as well as 1989 Miami) were sparked by the same cause as 2005 France.

Cause everybody in the hood has had it up to here.

It's getting harder and harder and harder
each and every year.

Some kids went in a store with their mother,
I saw her when she came out
she was gettin some pampers.

They said it was for the black man,
They said it was for the mexican,
And not for the white man.

But if you look at the streets
it wasn't about rodney king,
It's about this fucked up situation
and these fucked up police.
It's about coming up and staying on top
And screamin' 1-8-7 on a motherfuckin' cop.

No, I'm not advocating violence against the police, the foregoing are lyrics from a song by Sublime. And they get it right.

I was in college during the 1992 riots in LA, at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, CA. There were several hundred highschool students from all over the Western US on campus for various competitions. A group from a church in LA was staying in our downstairs lounge, and I was in there watching the riots with them. They pointed out their houses when the news helicopters passed overhead, the stores where they used to shop. They were good kids, but had they been back in LA, they would have been on the street, looting and burning, because the power of a mob is greater than pretty much any individual's beliefs, upbringing or will. And from the comments they made as they watched their friends destroy their neighborhoods on television, I'd say that Sublime got the situation exactly right.

The so-called unemployment rate is bullshit. It counts jobless claims primarily and factors in a few figures from labor force surveys. However, and I quote from the BLS FAQ: "those who have no job and are not looking for one are counted as 'not in the labor force.'"

So the people who populate our ghettos, who don't have jobs and aren't looking for jobs, are simply not counted for anything. This isn't about their choices or all the wonderful job opportunities that await a black man from inner city Detroit who was never taught to read. It's about the number of people in this country who actually have work.

France of course has nowhere near a perfect system. But if their unemployment rate is 8% because of their vast welfare system which provides their residents with enough benefits to live on, then they beat the hell out of our system. Those people "not in the labor force" are not in any system at all, and there's enough of them to push our unemployment rate far past 4%.

I also want to express my appreciation for "government-enforced leisure." Funny stuff, that. Interesting how democratically elected governments become nothing of the sort whenever they do anything not approved by Cato. If taking the month of August off every year is good enough for the French and our damned president, it should be good enough for the rest of us. I can understand business owners wanting to work every day of the year, but Americans' willingness to submit to wage slavery, slobbering over their corporate masters' hands for 2 whole weeks off a year, plus a couple of holidays (only one of which a year can be taken off in conjunction with the aforementioned PTO allowance, and the holiday must either start the time off or end it) is as astonishing as it is appalling.

"But if their unemployment rate is 8% because of their vast welfare system which provides their residents with enough benefits to live on, then they beat the hell out of our system."

-and-

"I also want to express my appreciation for "government-enforced leisure.""

Easy for you to say since you probably have a job. But for those poor workers who lose out to change, be it technological or consumption shifts, and their only option is a welfare check, that isn't as grand of an outcome as you might think.

"Those people "not in the labor force" are not in any system at all, and there's enough of them to push our unemployment rate far past 4%."

"Interesting how democratically elected governments become nothing of the sort whenever they do anything not approved by Cato."

That's because Cato thinks markets are more democratic than government. Democracy in America only means special interest groups. The left hates corporations for abusing the political system, yet every time they demand government to protect them from something, the hole for abuse gets wider.

Jason, if a person isn't listed with a state employment dept as seeking a job, they are not counted as unemployed - and this has been true like forever. Read your friendly US Dept. of Labor website, or try google. They are called 'discouraged workers' or 'displaced workers'.

BLS Glossary:

Labor force (Current Population Survey)
The labor force includes all persons classified as employed or unemployed in accordance with the definitions contained in this glossary

Unemployed persons (Current Population Survey)
Persons aged 16 years and older who had no employment during the reference week, were available for work, except for temporary illness, and had made specific efforts to find employment sometime during the 4-week period ending with the reference week. Persons who were waiting to be recalled to a job from which they had been laid off need not have been looking for work to be classified as unemployed.

Unemployment rate
The unemployment rate represents the number unemployed as a percent of the labor force.

Discouraged workers (Current Population Survey)
Persons not in the labor force who want and are available for a job and who have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months (or since the end of their last job if they held one within the past 12 months), but who are not currently looking because they believe there are no jobs available or there are none for which they would qualify.

Displaced workers (Current Population Survey)
Persons 20 years and over who lost or left jobs because their plant or company closed or moved, there was insufficient work for them to do, or their position or shift was abolished.

From the Weisbrot article linked by John:

Now for some arithmetic regarding France’s notoriously high unemployment rate among young people, which shaped politics there and influenced world opinion during the youth riots in 2005. The standard measure of unemployment puts the unemployed in the numerator, and unemployed plus employed in the denominator (u/u+e). By this measure, French males age 15-24 have an unemployment rate of 20.8 percent, as compared to 11.8 percent for the US. But this difference is mainly because in France, there are proportionately many more young males who are not in the labor force - because more are in school, and because young people in France do not work part time while they are in school, as much as they do in the United States. Those who are not in the labor force are not counted in either the numerator or the denominator of the unemployment rate.

A better comparison then is to look at the number of unemployed divided by the population of those in the age group 15-24. By this measure, the U.S. comes in at 8.3 percent and France at 8.6 percent. Both countries have a serious unemployment problem among youth, and in both countries it is highly concentrated among racial/ethnic minorities. But the problem is not much worse in France than it is in the United States.

Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Apr 30, 2007 2:49:30 AM

Is it something about France that makes people stupid?

Not exactly, it's just that we 'English Speaking Peoples' (to coin a phrase), have never gotten over having their butts kicked by Jeanne D'Arc (beaten by a girl! A GIRL!) back in the early 15th century. Just at the point when we were most likely to take over the whole of France, and therefore receive the benefit of automatically becoming French ourselves, which would clearly have made us all waaaaay cooler forevermore.

ENGLAND'S MOST FAMOUS SAINT: Some guy who reputedly dicked about with dragons, and didn't bother to actually exist.

Therefore France wins the game by eleventy billion coolness points and therefore must PAY for such perfidy by having we Englishmen infiltrate, into every publication written in any language we can understand (aka English), suitable pundits trained diss them at every opportunity for a thousand years. Only five hundred more years of sustained whining still to go until we feel we've got our manhood back!

The counter argument to his point about high french productivity is that french regulations requires higher productivity to gain employment than is neccesary in somewhere like the US. This is supported by the france's higher unemployment rates, the youth rate in particular.

As far as Weisbrot's argument about youth unemployment goes he seems to believe that you cannot make worthwhile observations of labor market conditions unless you factor in huge amounts of people who arent looking for work. If he truely believes this to be the case I wonder why he doesnt insist on the same method in determining overall unemployment. Perhaps because this would make french unemployment around 10% higher than the US rather than the 4% which results from using the standard measurement.

Posted by: henry hazlitt | Apr 30, 2007 6:18:40 AM

"But this is not a fair comparison, because the French do not work nearly as many hours as we do in the United States."

That's not a true statement.

It's true that the French do fewer paid hours of work, but they do more unapid hours of work in the home.

(Caveat, the only actual paper I've read on this gave figures for Germany and the US, not France and the US and in the US people had more leisure time).

The American's I've met in France seemed to think it was a lovely country, mind you that was more than a decade ago.

I think the objection to France is quite simple. There's a perception by some American's that the French are critical of them. It's only human nature to hate someone who you think hates you. Plus they've stopped going to church so they must be evil.

Sure,when compared to places like Zimbabwe,France's problems are a trifle,but the fact is that over the last election cycle,and even a little before that,the French economy has been unable to create sufficient growth to erase persistent unemployment, especially among youth and minorities.

The bottom line is the French really do have a problem that is bigger than a mere seasonal recession.They need to do something to boost job creation in the economy.

Posted by: Jussi Hämäläinen | Apr 30, 2007 7:31:04 AM

Jason "On the other hand, the US has higher inequality, but provides the opportunity to climb a ladder out of poverty."

That's the common perception but it's a myth. France has higher social mobility than the US.

But let's be honest. Americans who hate France often dredge up various statistics and assumptions about France to justify their hatred. But that's all they are, justifications and absurd ones at that. The real reasons aren't voiced out loud because they'd make one look like a small minded blowhard. Better to disguise your xenophobia and cultural triumphalism as "concern" for the countries problems.

There seem to me to be a fairly large number of misleading statistics being thrown around by all sides of this debate.

Using the same (International Labour Office) definitions, the French unemployment rate is certainly higher than the US and there is much more long-term unemployment in France than in the US.

However, a lot of the employment among young people in the US is in part-time jobs where people are both working and studying at the same time. Look at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/34/30/34542436.xls and you will see that the proportion of people below the age of 19 years who are neither in employment nor in education is actually significantly lower in France (3.4%) than in the US (7.5%), while it is also a bit lower among 20-24 year olds (14.4% in France vs. 15.6% in the US).

Part of this is probably due to higher birth rates among teenagers and young women in the US, but many more young French people stay in education (both for positive and negative reasons) and because tertiary education is mostly free they don’t need to have part-time jobs. Most ordinary universities are free, although the elite can pay a lot to prepare themselves to get into elite universities (the grandes écoles). But as a result, outside of these very elite institutions, French universities are much less well-funded than in the US or the UK, for that matter. Nevertheless France seems able to produce large numbers of people who are very good at engineering and science.

Employment rates among people aged 25 to 54 years are actually slightly higher in France than in the US – see http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/53/15/36900060.pdf The same source shows that a major difference is in employment rates among 55-64 year olds where 60% are employed in the US compared to 40% in France. Whether all this early retirement is voluntary is another matter, but France's labour market performance could be significantly improved and their social protection system could be a made a lot more sustainable if they could simply get people to stay in jobs for a few more years.

This implies to me that whatever the labour market rigidities in France – which are unquestionably higher than in the US – as many people of prime working age get jobs as in the US. There are certainly lots of anecdotal reports about young people going to the UK to get jobs, but France is a long way away from being a basket case, even though it does face significant challenges.

Higher rates of immigrant unemployment are certainly a problem in France, but that is true of many European countries. But the US does put people in prison at close to 9 times the rate that France does - see - http://www.oecd.org/document/24/0,2340,en_2649_34637_2671576_1_1_1_1,00.html The effect of this is probably a lot higher than some previous comments have suggested. For example, if you take the most recently available joint statistics for 2005 and you took the extreme assumption that if everyone who is currently in prison in the US should be counted as unemployed in the population (and of course you simultaneously increase the population denominator), then my rough estimate is that the unemployment rate would have increased from around 4.6% to 6.1%.

I'm a Californian transplanted to DC, and surprisingly at peace with it. Or at least I was till it started getting colder. Job-wise, I'm the staff writer for The American Prospect. In the past, I've written for the Washington Monthly, the LA Weekly, The LA Times, The New Republic, Slate, The New York Sun, and the Gadflyer. I'm a damn good cook. No, really. Want to know more? E-mail, I'm friendly.